


Flowers For a Planet

by esama



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Nonsense, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-23 07:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23841208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: There are flowers growing in the Grey.
Comments: 209
Kudos: 1588





	Flowers For a Planet

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by Nimadge, many thanks.  
> Mild spoilers for FF7 Remake? Maybe? Not Really?  
> Takes Place After Assassin's Creed 3 and After Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. So  
> Spoilers.

There are flowers.

Desmond tilts his head and then crouches down to examine them. They're real enough, with six white petals and a yellow centre, green leaves and everything – they look kind of like lilies, he thinks, though he's never really been enough into flowers to know for sure. They're pretty, is what they are. There's just three of them, and they're pretty.

They're also growing from nothing, in nothing, for no apparent reason whatsoever.

"What's this then?" Desmond murmurs, stroking one finger under one of the lilies, turning its trumpet-like shape towards himself. More than just look real, it _feels_ real too. He can feel it, smooth and delicate, against his finger tip, its slight weight. He thinks, if he wanted to, he could pick it up. Just snap the stem and pick up the flower – in _this place_ he could pick up a flower.

It makes no damn sense.

Looking up, Desmond looks left, right, centre, searching for some explanation for the impossible flowers. There's a trail of them, just one here, another there, a spotty trail of just barely visible white blossoms leading away, their vividness fading out until even the green is hard to see against the backdrop of bright grey nothingness. The flowers blend in pretty well – it's a miracle he spotted them at all.

But he did, and it's a trail, so…

Desmond stands up with a stretch, glancing around in case there's more to see – an ancestor or two, appearing from the nothingness. They blend into the Grey pretty well too, so it's always a bit of a surprise when they pop up. Nothing this time, though, just the flowers. "Alright then," Desmond says and turns to the flowers. "Take me to your leader."

He sets out to follow the trail – and damn if that isn't novel. He's walked endless distances here for endless amounts of time, but there was never any real sense of _distance being crossed_ in it. Everything is relative to something, but in this place? There's no frame of reference for anything, especially not distance or time, so… it's something else, to move about, and see the actual progress being made by how many flowers he's passing by. Three, two, one, two again, four in a little cluster, three again… he's actually making way here.

Definitely new, though that too is relative to things that he can't actually grasp. Newness is a matter of time and experience – and neither happen here. Nothing changes here, and no time passes. Except for… now, apparently.

Four flowers becomes six, and then nine, and then too many to count, until Desmond is following a visible trail of them. The path meanders a little, but it's definitely going into the same direction – into… _thataway,_ really. There's no left, right, up down, or anything here. It's just going, so Desmond follows it. All the way until the trail turns into a field, into a meadow, and suddenly there are more flowers than he knows what to do with.

"Okay," he says, scratching his scarred lip and considering. Maybe – maybe it's something on the outside, reaching in? The Precursors used this place for their tech, Desmond is pretty sure, so maybe… maybe people back home had figured something out and it's leaking in? Because that's what this feels like – a leak from… some-space-else. It kind of looks like it's spreading too, which would be concerning, if Desmond actually cared about the sanctity of the Grey. The flowers are making it seem more white than grey, too, which makes everything brighter and maybe a little bit nicer.

Explanation would be nice too, though. Because the Grey hasn't changed in… it hasn't changed. Not before this. And anything that can actually change the Grey…

Yeah. "Hello?" Desmond calls, looking around. "Anybody in here? You're leaking niceness into my gloomy existential prison, I would like to personally say thank you. Helloo-oo?"

No answer, though there's a flicker of a ghost nearby, fracturing in and out of existence for a moment before condensing into a darker grey shape of an older man with dark grey and blue clothes, and – ah, Ezio, of course, old and grey. He's just standing there for a moment, considering the flowers, and then he's crouching down, hidden blade snapping out so that he can cut a handful into a bouquet. "Bene," he murmurs, his voice echoing. "This should do."

Desmond watches him, resting a hand on his hip and considering trying to tell him that – that… well, that it doesn't matter. Sofia isn't here, Ezio doesn't need to take flowers to her, nothing of this matters really, because he's just a replayed memory, reacting to the weird new stimulus.

But Ezio looks so satisfied with the flowers that he actually smiles, and Desmond doesn't have the heart to say anything – he just watches the snippet of a memory play out, as the old mentor binds the bouquet up gently and then turns to take it away, walking through the flowers and into the embrace of the Grey, which sweeps the memory away.

Shaking his head, Desmond takes another look around and then crouches down among the flowers, waving his hand over them and watching the flowers wave and give way. They're pretty, and if this is the only change that's gonna happen, well. He'll take it. Anything is better than nothing. They smell nice too, which is more than welcome.

A way out would be better, sure, but… he'll take it.

Desmond is cutting himself a bouquet too, when he hears it – just a whisper at first, distant and faded. Then it grows a little louder, as though the source is getting closer, until finally… "Hello?" quiet voice calls, wavering as though speaking through water. "Helloo?"

Desmond stands up with his bunch of flowers, feeling weirdly guilty for picking so many – his bouquet is much bigger than the handful Ezio had picked. "Hi?" he calls, searching the area. The flowers stretch into infinity, giving the Grey something it's never had before – a horizon, and a clearly defined line between up and down. "I'm over here – hello, can you hear me?"

He hears the person long before he sees them, hears the swishing and waving of the flowers, how they rustle like in a wind. Desmond just about pinpoints the direction and sets out to meet them, holding the flowers guiltily against his chest, until he sees just barely something – like a heat mirage, far away, coming closer. It's a darker, more colourful shape, brown and pink and red, and – it's a person.

"Hello!" she calls, waving a hand excitedly, until he can see her – and the thin veil between them.

There is a wall in the Grey, like an infinite pane of glass – it separates her from him. Her side is more white than his, and there's hell of a lot more flowers there, but – they're obviously getting through somehow, since they're leaking out. "Huh," Desmond says and looks down at her. She's young, petite, pretty – and Desmond is pretty sure she's a human. Human-esque anyway. "Hi," he says, amazed.

"Hi," she answers, her eyes shining green as she steps up to the pane of glass, pressing her hand against it. "Oh, you're very far away, aren't you?"

"Am I?" Desmond asks, surprised. Does distance matter. "Um. Okay, I guess – where are you?"

"Right here – see?" she says, tapping the glass and then pointing backwards and he can – see what she's pointing at. Sort of. She's… _very_ far away. Like, impossibly far away – the thing between them isn't so much _space-time,_ as it is… reality. She's in a _different reality_.

"Oh, yeah, that's pretty far away," Desmond agrees faintly.

"I knew they could communicate," the girl says, turning back to him and smiling brightly. "That's where summon Materia comes from, the interaction between our plane and others. I was trying to reach for them, see if they could help us, but – I reached for you instead, by accident. You're on another Planet, aren't you?"

"I – think so?" he answers and shakes his head. "Yeah, I think I am. My name is Desmond, um. Hi?"

"Hi!" she says and does a little curtsy-bow thing, adorable and cheerful. "I'm Aerith. It's wonderful to meet another Ancient!"

Desmond can sort of see what she means – words aren't just words here, the significance behind them has this echo. It's the same-not-same as Precursor. First Civilisation, Those That Came Before, the Ones Who Were Before Us, and also Me and You and We're Not Exactly The Same but We're Same Enough and You're Here Just Like Me So You Must Be Like Me and – Desmond's head is spinning a bit. "You – you too, I think," he says, blinking rapidly.

Aerith smiles and then looks down at the flowers in Desmond's arms. "Do you like them?" she asks.

"I love them," Desmond says honestly, looking down. "They're new."

"I didn't mean to infect your side with them, but – I'm not sad I did," Aerith says and then shields her eyes from the glare, peering over to Desmond's side, to Earth's side. "Boy, it looks gloomy over there! What happened?"

"I – don't know, really. It's always been like this," Desmond admits. "For me, anyway."

"That's a little sad," Aerith says and then looks up at him. "But your Planet is alive and strong, right? Really strong."

Desmond shrugs. He isn't sure what that means – except the words carry with them the weight of _Unlike my Planet_. Curious, he peers over to her side, squinting against the shine of her space and… yeah. It's brighter, livelier somehow – natural, maybe? But it's small. Really, really… _small_. Not restrained but… drained. "What happened?" he asks.

Aerith sighs, glancing backwards. "On my Planet, people learned to tap into it," she says sadly. "They drained her for the Lifestream, turning it into fuel, into electricity, and then… spending it, transforming it into colder and harder forms of energy, the sort that don't return to the Planet. They just… expended it. It's –" she trails away and then smiles. "It's nearly drained her dry now. She was already so weak, when they started."

Desmond blinks. "You can – do that?" he asks. Just tap into the Grey and _suck it out_? "Damn."

"Yeah," Aerith sighs, hugging herself. "I've been trying to figure out how to – to replenish her. Or make her grow more," she admits. "All life begins from nothing, and then it grows and spreads and pools up – I hoped I could figure out how, but… it's a vicious circle. Life depends on Lifestream and Lifestream depends on Life, and one of those things was… wounded."

Desmond makes a sympathetic sound, though he doesn't really understand. "I'm so sorry."

"It didn't happen in your world. Something else did," Aerith says, looking back to the Grey. "It looks so secure, over there. But… cold and hard. Why?"

Desmond shrugs, and looks back. "I – I don't know how to explain it," he admits. "It's like a… a theory, or –" he stops and tries to figure out how to put it into words. How to explain the concept of a statistic that got so damn detailed and complicated that it _bends the universe into its will_. The Isu figured it out, they observed everything down to it's most minute detail – and that very act of observation changed the thing they were observing. Which in this case was… everything. "It was Understood," he says, finally, and tries to pack the concept onto it.

"Oh," Aerith says, making a face like she sees it, but doesn't quite get it. "Wow."

"Yeah," Desmond agrees. "Makes my head spin too, and I've been here for…" he considers the _pinprick infinity that's passed_ and shudders. "Let's not go there." It might've been like two seconds, or it might've been the entire lifespan of human species. Who knows. Earth is still there, though, so… it's probably _not_ been billions of years yet.

"So," he says and turns to her. "You're trying to figure out how to fix it? Your world, its… energy problem?"

Aerith sighs and hugs herself, thunking her forehead against the _film between realities_ that's separating them. "I thought I got it, for a bit," she murmurs. "Send someone back or save someone who died and… and change the history, I thought… I thought that might do it. Change what happened when it all went from bad to worse, and the Planet doesn't die. I thought that might do it, but it went wrong."

Desmond looks into her words, and he can almost understand it – the efforts she'd gone through, and the countermeasures in place to stop just that sort of thing. Looks like her more naturalistic Cetra figured what the Isu failed to understand – time travel. And they had protections in place. "I'm sorry."

Aerith is quiet for a moment, her shoulders drawn up. Then she shakes her head. "Don't be," she says and looks up. "It's not your fault."

It's still a little hard to not feel guilty – here Desmond's standing with all the potential and power and _life_ of Earth at his back, while her planet – Gaia? – is literally bleeding to death. "Anything I can do?" Desmond asks. "I mean. I got all this stuff, apparently." Not that he's ever been able to make use of it, but she can. "Maybe between ourselves we could figure out something."

Aerith blinks and then looks to the Grey – to the Earth and her… whatever it is, that's apparently flowing inside her. Except the Grey doesn't flow, not exactly, not like her Gaia, her Lifestream. It's like comparing an artificially dug out canal to a natural river – the Grey just _is_ , while the Lifestream flows in rapids.

"It looks painful, almost," Aerith says. "What you've done to her, forcing her into order like that. But – but if you wanted to, if someone tried to pump out your Lifestream, you could just cut the flow, couldn't you? Just divert it elsewhere as their pumps run dry. No one could take it from you, if you didn't choose to give it away."

Desmond looks back, trying to make sense of it. The Grey was… harnessed, he sees that now – Aerith has given context to his reality, and he can almost make sense of it. The Isu tamed it, channelled it, put down a grid, made order out of the natural chaos – their Calculations… and so they controlled it. There's just no one left to control it, now. Except for Desmond, who, as per usual, has no idea what he's doing and thus is doing mostly nothing.

But… yeah, if someone tried to set up a Grey-drilling rig or something, he could probably just shut that shit down from here, couldn't he? The same way the Isu had harnessed the power of Grey for the Grand Temple, and turned it to save the planet from the Solar Flare, he could probably… divert the flow from here.

He almost would've preferred not to know that.

"It's too late," Aerith says. "Our Planet is too old for anyone to do this to her, too set on her ways. But maybe…" she looks at him. "You're – an Ancient. A different kind of Ancient, a – mechanical one."

"Artificial," Desmond agrees. Genetically engineered over dozens and dozens of generations, gathering scattered genes here and there to funnel them down into one person, him – to recreate what was lost tens of thousands of years ago – "But… I think so, maybe? Something like that."

"Maybe you could help, after all," Aerirh says, pressing both her palms against the screen between them. "It's – different for you. This – all of this. You're…" she hesitates, looking at him. "You're not a healer, you're… something else. What are you?"

Desmond grimaces and then shrugs. "An Assassin," he says – but it doesn't come out as an _Assassin_ , not as he knows it. Instead it's…

They Protect the Mankind's Free Will, They Restrain Power and Corruption, They Free People and Protect People and Empower People – _Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted_ , Blend with the Crowd, Stay Your Blade From the Blood of the Innocent, Never Compromise Your Creed –

And what Aerith hears is _Guardian of Humanity,_ and her eyes widen excitedly. "You're a _protector_!" she says.

"That's not quite –" Desmond winces. "It's complicated."

"It always is," Aerith says, leaning into the barrier. "Will you help me? Will you help my Planet – if you could, would you?"

It's a loaded question, because it carries with it not only the implication of enormous fucking responsibility – but also what he sees him as. To her, he's a sort of a _summon –_ a thing from her world, a creature, entity, sometimes a _god_ , something you _draw from another level of reality_ to help you in your battle. And damn, that's handy, Desmond could've used a little of that back when he was alive.

Which brings an unfortunate fact of, "I'm kind of dead," Desmond says apologetically. "Sorry."

"On your Planet, yes," Aerith agrees. "On mine, you never lived."

"Um. That's – " Desmond pauses. Why does that make sense? He isn't sure, but somehow it does. He was never alive in her world, so he never died, so… he isn't dead there. "That's nonsense logic," he says, baffled.

"Magic is like that," Aerith says brightly and leans back, pushing against the barrier with straight arms as she peers up at it. "How do we break this – do you know?"

"Hold on a minute," Desmond says. "Your world is dying – me coming over might not actually… change anything. Outside this place, I'm just one guy – what do you expect me to do alone?"

"Well, I'm going too, of course," Aerith says and sighs. "And there's another, a – an enemy, he already slipped back, and… I have to go, and if you went too, you could help me. I could – having another Ancient to help, that would…"

Aerith almost saved the Planet. _She'd almost done it…_ but it hadn't been enough, her power and her will hadn't cut it. With another Ancient to help her, and one like him – one of _order_ and _structure_ and _design_ , maybe – maybe together they could put order into the withering chaos, and _replant_ the world, not as a wild, dying meadow, but as a garden, managed maybe, ordered _definitely_ , but _flourishing_. With him, she might be able to do it.

"Industrial farming of a life cycle of a planet?" Desmond mumbles, trying to make sense of it. It doesn't make sense to him at _all_. "What?"

"Maybe. And, if nothing else," Aerith hesitates and looks down. "You could always kill those responsible. They've killed thousands and thousands," she says and meets his eyes. "And that's what you are, right? You kill _killers_."

Okay maybe she did get the idea. "Well," Desmond says, hesitating. "Maybe, but – it can't be that easy. I mean – we just met. I don't know anything about you, or your world, and you don't know anything about me – why would you… risk it?"

Aerith shrugs. "You can't lie here," she says and smiles. "I can see what you are. Can't you see me?"

Desmond blinks and – yeah. Yeah, he can. "Oh," he says. "Right."

She laughs, embarrassed, and shrugs again. "Well?" she asks. "I mean – I would get it, if you didn't. It's not your world, but… It's _a_ world. And I think it could be nice, with a little hard work. You have this…" she hesitates and waves a hand. "Potential."

It's not _potential_ Desmond hears. It's _Masyaf_ and _Tiber Island_ and _Davenport Homestead_ and _Brotherhood_ and _rebuilding_ and _recruiting_ , it's Altaïr teaching his Brotherhood, it's Ezio recruiting all over Rome, it's Connor welcoming people to their new home, it's – it's so many other things, but mostly it's the _Mentorship_ and all the work implied in the concept.

Desmond swallows.

"Well?" Aerith asks. "I think your Brotherhood would do well, on my poor Planet. I think it would fit right in. I think you could do a lot of good."

"Okay," Desmond says faintly, his eyes a little wide and his heart pounding. "I'm sold. How do we break the barrier?"

Aerith smiles, clapping her hands excitedly. "I knew it!" she says. "This is going to be great!"

She believes it too, _damn_. Okay. Fuck.

Desmond is going to go through hell for this girl, and he's not even mad. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yep. This is a thing that's gonna happen now, maybe. FF7 fics are back on the menu, boys. 
> 
>   
> This shall be a oneshot until proven chaptered.  
> 


End file.
